Shadows in the Dawn
by LeonaWriter
Summary: When a trip to Domino on the trail of a city-wide thief turns into murder, Shinichi and Kaito find the impossible starting to take a turn for improbable when they have to work with some familiar faces... YGO cross. Re-updated with edits.
1. Family Outing

Shadows in the dawn

Chapter one – family outing

AN: I'm actually using Becky Tailweaver's Relative Truth as the back story to this fic. You can read this story apart from that one, though. My version, of course, is ever so slightly AU, but other than that (and you'll find out what as the story progresses) it follows DC and MK canon and follows on from another story I've been planning, called A SLight Misunderstanding, which is a crossover with DNAngel. You don't have to read that first either, as I wrote this one first. EDIT: To anyone new to the story, I've been going over it to make it a bit less confusing. Hope this helps. Tell me if it doesn't.

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". . . and this here is the Domino city museum, home to many ancient archaeological finds of recent history, including our famous display on Egypt and the unknown Pharaohs . . ."

On and on and on droned the boring tour guide. Kuroba Kaito hid a yawn. They already knew most of this stuff – well, he and Conan did, anyway. Ran seemed to be the only one listening with rapt attention, eyes glued to the exhibits and dragging him and his cousin over to look at them from time to time. Even Mouri Kogoro was just looking around in annoyance and boredom, even though the tour was for him.

And Shinichi Kudo, of course. Though the real Shinichi was having as much fun as he was, glued to Ran by the hand and dragged off everywhere likely until his legs ached. His cousin was still as terminally short as the last time Kaito had seen him, but the people here didn't know that, but had sent out invitations to the two detectives even though the younger of the two they were meaning to reach hadn't been heard from in nearly a year.

It was simple really. The case was that Domino city had become the victim of what appeared to be a talented thief recently. Sometimes of ordinary things like money and jewellery, but more often of certain displays featured in this very museum. Kaito had been dragged along by the squirt because every single time something had been taken it had been returned, usually within a week or two. The case had piqued Conan's interest because the whole city was being targeted, and unlike the Kaitou Kid, this thief didn't have many qualms about hurting people. Not many had actually been injured and none had died, but _something_ had unsettled Tantei-kun. Enough to call in Kaito and ask him to work undercover as his former self.

_At least he's not about to try and denounce me as Kid this time_, he thought with an inner smirk. _Not to mention the one I'm pretending to be is right there to kick me in the shins if I get anything wrong_. That last time had been. . . fun, definitely, but he _was_ glad that this time, he was going through the whole thing with his cousin on his side and not working against him.

". . . here as we walk through the third corridor, we can see the Meiji era displays, including Nishiki paintings of the city as it was and personal items belonging to our ancestors here. Old-style coins as well as swords have been found, apparently hidden from the government for centuries, only to be found now, in the modern day for us to discover anew. . ."

'Shinichi' sighed. So far, they had heard nothing of any thief, nothing of anything that might have been stolen even in the past week, nothing of any interest to a detective, a magician or even a phantom jewel thief. None of the exhibits in the museum that he had seen so far had even had set gems. Not that he thought that Pandora was going to be found in something gaudy like that. It was what _they_ thought that mattered; if he got there before they did, then he could destroy the damn thing, or at least 'lose' it if he couldn't even do that. He'd make sure no one ever got hurt because of the stupid thing again.

He looked up as he saw 'Conan-kun' shoot him a desperate glance. Ran was about to go off again, and this time, if he was right – and he was darn good at reading people – then it was to –

_Bingo_. The fashion department. Poor, _poor_ Conan-kun. He supposed it was just evens with the guy if he just left him to his girlfriend's tender mercies. If it wasn't for him, they wouldn't be stuck here. And the girl needed some way to get back at him, especially since karate didn't exactly seem an appropriate thing to use on a kid with a seven year old body who could give the cutesy eyes just as well as Kaito could.

". . . and that is – ah! An excellent choice of direction, young lady. Yes – if we follow through this corridor, you may see the pride of Domino. Donated by a young lady on the Egyptian government with an awful amount of power, as she is said to come from a rather wealthy family, I hear. I think it is said that many of our Egyptian exhibits come directly from her own private collection. And a – "

"Ne, ojisan? Are you the owner of this museum?"

Their guide stopped, pausing in his spiel. Conan often had that effect on people.

"Ah, no. I am just a mere employee. One who very much loves the history this museum gives us. . . the owner is one Bakura-san, who is often away. He was back just last week, but had pressing business to attend to elsewhere, I'm afraid. The man in charge of the day-to-day running of the place is in his office. I am afraid to say that these thefts do trouble him so. I honestly can't say why anyone would want to –"

The man broke off, looking more than a little flustered at the very thought. Kaito and Conan shared an exasperated look. Most probably not the man they were looking for, then. They followed him as he went further in, Ran staring wide-eyed at some of the costumes, some of them foreign and all getting older and older as they went on. When at last they reached the end, the poor miniature detective was fighting off the red that had invaded his face after a couple of well-aimed 'Do you think I'd look good in that one?' comments. Kaito was in no condition to snipe however, because as soon as the others' backs were turned, Conan had turned his attention to a skimpy night blue number and innocently asked (quietly, of course) what he thought Aoko would look like in it, with that irritating smug smirk hidden in the childishness.

The museum employee was just lecturing about the latest outfit in the line when he broke off without warning, his face puzzled and worried.

"Ne, ojisan? What's wrong?"

"That – that room. It's where the Egyptian exhibit is kept. Th-that light wasn't supposed to be on."

The man had been turning on the lights as they went and switching them back off as they left each area, since the tour was taking place on a day when the museum was usually closed. Not one single light other than the offices and other necessaries had been on else wise.

Kaito and Conan traded a dark look. _What if it was the thief? What if they were still in there?_ Today was supposed to be the museum's day off, the closed day, only open to them as special guests. What if the thief had decided to take today as a work day?

They stayed behind their guide as he unlocked the door, but the two of them rushed into the room before the man could even step a foot in, movements almost identical.

No sign of a break-in.

No sign of theft.

No sign of anyone in the room other than the long-deceased exhibits. . .

But there was one recently dead body.

AN: I hope no one's too confused. Ran does know about Conan being Shinichi, if you hadn't got that..


	2. Historians and History Makers

Shadows in the Dawn

Chapter two – Historians and History-Makers

Disclaimer – Don't own either. Don't own RT. Only own the crossover idea.

EDIT: Poked about a bit, Just like last chapter.

"There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, my friend." – Shakespeare

Conan and Kaito raced each other to the prone form of the now deceased, yet because of his longer legs, it was the thief who got to it first.

"He's dead."

The declaration had been all but unnecessary, but a confirmation more than anything else.

Conan hoped that he had been the only one to see the roiling emotions before his cousin's Poker Face had slammed down, the mask itself a dead giveaway, before melting and changing into his older self's features; calm, confident and collected. He knew for certain that he was the only one to hear the tremors of anger and frustration in the half-copied voice and mannerisms. Anyone else – except Ran maybe, who knew – would ignore what didn't make sense and let their imagination make up excuses.

"Ran. Call the police. No one else come over there until I say so."

--

With that, Kaito – as Shinichi – bent down next to the body, handily obscuring Conan from view so that his cousin could do what he did best, and also making some observations of his own.

_Guy died almost instantly. Had to have. Looks like heart failure, too, from the stiffening of the muscles and lack of any bodily harm. What I don't get though, is why – how – this happened. There's nothing left lying around to indicate electric shock or anything, but the body's still warm. Plus, there's the look on his face. No matter what Koizumi says or does, I 'm not gonna believe that someone died of fright_.

There was always the possibility that it had been a simple heart attack, but. . .

The two cousins traded looks. It was obvious to both that that was not what they were thinking, either of them.

Kaito stood back up, taking stock of the situation and the room they were in. Likely only his cousin, the real detective in the situation, knew that the things that he was looking for were different from what Conan, still pacing around the body and investigating in his own way, was looking for. They say that it takes a thief to catch a thief, and this one here could see that there hadn't been any in this room for quite a while. Certainly not recently enough for he or she to have done the deed and gotten away.

The wall that ran to the right of where they had come in was lined with windows, though they were all of the sort that only had slim spaces up at the top that could be opened by the curator. The way they had come in had needed a key, and there hadn't been one on the body, or even anywhere near it, although there was the possibility that the victim had used something less official that they hadn't seen that was on him yet. None of the exhibits were big enough, tall enough or wide enough on their own to be of any use to a criminal who would want to hide from visitors or the police. None of them obscured any of the entrances or exits the place had to offer, and the doors themselves were all closed, assumedly locked.

It appeared to be a true locked room murder case, and even Kaito had to discretely shake his head when Conan looked up at him, hoping for an idea from a magician's perspective.

It was at that moment that Ran came hurrying back in, security guard in tow, looking confused and scared. Kaito again swore that he would never let Aoko know about his nightlife, or ever let her see anything like this. He didn't want to see her look like that. He could say one thing for the Mouri girl; he respected how well she could come back from just about anything.

It was then that the security guard, who revealed that he had been watching the cameras with care because of the mysterious thief of Domino, said that he had seen no person enter or exit the building ever since their arrival, and none of his predecessors that day had made note of anything out of the ordinary, either.

--

Several hours later, the police were having no more luck than the detective and the thief had. The area had been cordoned off, officers had been sent to the far corners of the museum, Conan had been nosing around until his feet hurt and he even stayed out of Kogoro's way – for the most part.

The tables began to turn when a commotion started up in the foyer, a heated argument that they couldn't hear properly.

Footsteps on the stairs, and their attention was caught, moments later and 'Shinichi' and Conan's eyebrows rose at the sound – whoever it was, they weren't with the police, or at least not a professional. There was an oddly discordant mix of hesitance and well-placed confidence in the footfalls, which was only reinforced when the figure was able to be seen.

The door, which had been shut to accord the police and detectives some amount of privacy in their investigations, was swung wide, letting in one of the strangest-looking individuals that the party from Beika had ever seen.

Straight from running, presumably a short time before as well as during his run up to the crime scene, hair of such a shade of natural peroxide white that it didn't seem possible splayed every which way on the head of a boy with pale skin and doe-brown eyes, which were at the moment doing a good impression of taking the room apart with his eyes in an unholy mix-up of both Kaito and Shinichi's methods. The figure was wearing getup that probably wouldn't have looked out of place on Hakuba, formal and style-less as it was, being a pair of light blue jeans and a shirt of a slightly darker tone worn under a – cricket jumper? The boy – and Kaito could tell this because of long experience cross-dressing and having to know the differences, including centres of balance – was wearing worn trainers. As they watched, his glance passed over them and Kaito shivered as he got the feeling like he had just been told he wasn't worth bothering with.

A sigh, and the brown eyes softened, hands reaching into pockets and pulling out a hair band that the boy used to tie his hair back with, grimacing as he did so.

It was at that point that some of the police in charge of the area finally decided to act like police and tried to shoo the newcomer out, only to find that the kid had already breached the red tape with a dexterity and grace that the phantom thief recognized – from himself.

"Ah – y-young master! But – you shouldn't be here! When your father finds out that you've been- "

The boy silenced the museum aide with a sad smile, and one which sent yet more unwanted shivers down his spine. That kid – it was like watching Conan, but at least with Conan he knew what he was facing. With Conan he was just looking at his cousin or before he knew that, Tantei-kun, just de-aged a bit. Okay, maybe more than just a bit. But with this new guy, it was a different story. For one thing, he already looked around their age.

"But young master – "

"My father is away," the boy said, speaking his first words since entering the room, "again. I doubt very much that he would mind if I was here. I did not know the man, but I am just as curious as to how he died as these detectives here. My main skills may lie in other areas, but I have been known to shed light on things most people – ignore."

_Other areas, huh? And just what would most people ignore that this guy would see better than us?_

Yet apparently something that the local police here recognized, because none of them seemed to mind another teenager poking around the scene. Except, the white-haired boy didn't poke around. In fact, apart from the glance he'd given the room when first arriving, he hadn't paid the rest any attention. He practically zoned in on the body, as if called by some sort of homing device, muttering nonsense under his breath as he did so.

When he reached the corpse he seemed to go very, vey still. After a moment or two of what seemed to be thought, he cursed in – was that Egyptian? He'd definitely been watching The Mummy too many times if he was able to identify _that_ old language. Then, in English, a whispered –

"Necromancy. Ye _gods_, Ra and _Anubis_. _Necromancy_."

Kaito's eyebrows lifted themselves clear into his hairline, and he was sure that, a few metres away, his cousin's were doing the same, just as he was sure that they were both thinking along the same incredulous lines.

_What the hell?!_

--

AN: And there's the second chapter. Yet another cliffie. I'm evil, yes I am. I hope you all enjoyed it, and I hope you all recognize who the new character is. I'd be very disappointed in you if you didn't.


	3. Magics and Magicians

Shadows in the Dawn

Disclaimer – I claim only the half-mentioned bloodsucking vampires. And here, they're not even real...

Chapter three – Magics and Magicians

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Silence – or at least, time in which none of the three of them said or did anything. Then, realising that he had been staring, Conan rolled his eyes.

_Oh, please. I mean, necromancy? If those kinds of things were real, I'd never – wait, what?!_

"- interesting idea you have there. Now why – _oi_!"

"But Shinichi-niichan, I need to go _now_!"

Kaito sent a polite duck of the head to the white haired kid before letting himself be dragged mercilessly in the direction of the corridor nearest to the toilets. The moment they were out or earshot, the real but shrunken Kudo Shinichi turned on his cousin.

"You _idiot_! Kudo Shinichi does not, I repeat does _not_ listen to and sound like he actually _believes_ people when they say it all happened because of youkai and bakemono. Do you know how many cases I had to solve because there were rumours of a ghost? A Yuki-Onna?" He put on a voice. "But Mr. Police Officer, sir, no human could have gotten all the way up there. It _had_ to be the Tanuki! But I've _seen_ Shiragami-sama! He was in the woods just _yesterday_. Or how about the old witch in the mountains? We all _know_ she eats travellers who come her way, don't we? And her son who drinks their blood?"

Conan snorted and looked away.

"Shinichi doesn't believe in those things. Can't afford to. Scepticism is often what solve a case."

"Yeah," Kaito shot back in Shinichi's own voice. "All very well for you to say. You're not the one with a witch in your class."

"I somehow fail to see how one admittedly pretty but delusional teenager is going to make me change my mind."

Kaito opened his mouth as if to give a retort, but seemed to think the better of it. Instead, his hands went defensively to his pockets in a manner familiar to anyone who knew either cousin.

"And what about me then?"

Conan's face and body language closed itself off in a moment, going back to what anyone who didn't know his most dangerous secret would see – a bright and happy seven year old boy.

"You?" He asked before Kaito could say anything else. "But Shinichi-niichan is _all_ normal."

The voice, disguised as a child's though it was, brooked no arguments.

And they went back in.

---

Bakura Ryou, still sitting on the museum seating not far away from where the two detectives had left him, groaned, rubbing at his eyes.

It was easy enough with the Shadows; that dark magic was written into his very soul, so that he did not have to be told how the rules worked. From the Shadows he had been born, his soul created from what little light had been left in a thief and murderer's _ka_. The darker side of the soul, or Yami, trapped within the Ring. The light, or Hikari, without. Together, just like Yugi and Atemu, they _were_ the Shadows.

Shadows were easy.

Necromancy and psychological illusions, however, tended to give him headaches. Not only the kind that came with not being able to understand something, either – even if there was a bit of that mixed in.

There had been a time when he could dabble. He still did, in fact. Just not so often with so many different types of magic in one place. Especially not in the museum. Not when –

The door opened again and the two boys came back in. Ryou closed his eyes, not wishing to get an even worse pounding in his temples at the double-images they would give him, which he'd noticed and tried to ignore ever since he'd first walked into the room.

Instead, he concentrated his memory on what he had seen.

_That kind of rigor mortis. . . the eyes. . . the way the Shadows touched him. . . the mark. Not completely of the Shadows, but close enough to get their attention, at least. . . long distance use, definitely. Something. . . something. . ._

_. . . Oh, this is useless_.

((And why do you think that is?))

Ryou sighed. He'd been wondering when his own personal life commentary would turn itself back on.

(How should _I_ know? It's too _noisy_ in here.)

He could barely hear himself think over the detectives, the rest of the crowd in the room and the buzz of the ambient magics all fighting to be noticed. Bakura snorted.

((I never used to think you were stupid. _Don't_ make me start now.))

Ryou rubbed his forehead, shifting white tresses out of his eyes and risking a glance over at where he knew the strange detectives were. Three taller, one shorter. And one of those taller three didn't even look like a detective at all.

They were like Peter Pan's shadows. Sometimes they would copy their counterpart's movements exactly, and at others a completely different gesture would occur, throwing their single watcher almost completely off kilter for a moment when it happened.

(The last time I felt at all like this,) he thought absently, almost missing the anticipation coming from his other as he fought to finish the thought, (was when I went to Azumano.)

He waited. And waited some more, blindly watching the goings on of the museum crime scene. He was, as his friends would be disappointed to know and yet at the same time completely understanding of the fact that he was rather familiar with crime scenes. Both from the perspective of someone trying to figure out what had happened. . . and of the one sliding away from the blame. At least the latter wasn't all that rare in his group of friends. He didn't think that Yugi would ever be able to live down having to be picked up from the police station after being found in the vicinity of one damaged building, two wrecked cars, a blown streetlamp and one unconscious gang – all at half past two in the morning.

He hadn't always so comfortable with the second. In fact, it had taken a couple of years to ease into it at all before he could be blocks away and still be having the adrenaline rushing to his head. Not counting the hell his life had been from the moment his hand had first graced the surface of blood gold to the time when he had first met Yugi and the others, that is, and ignoring all of those many times during his first six months or so after meeting Yugi.

It had taken a number of instances and more experiences than he cared to remember to get him to where he was now. Some – all right, many – of them included near-fatal (and sometimes not-so-near fatal, but never for him) incidents, the odd occasion when unusual his skill sets had saved his life and those of his friends, and that wasn't even mentioning the sheer embarrassment that he had gone through while learning how to fight.

It wasn't any of those more mundane things, however, that gave him a good sharp prod in the seven senses, making him aware that the older of the two other boys was nearby and looking straight at him with those twinkling, bright blue eyes. Intelligent eyes.

"Hey." Despite himself, Ryou jumped slightly at the now loud voice that had somehow learned how to speak in stereo, one casual and the other suave, without the owner appearing to notice. The voice went on as if nothing interesting was happening. "I was wondering – you want to get out of here?"

Ryou frowned.

"But – aren't you supposed to be helping the police?"  
"I am," he said, leaving interpretation open. "But I don't know about you, I'm getting a headache here."

Ryou looked up sharply, making him wince when he did it too fast. He saw the two versions of the other boy blur at the edges slightly. Casual suit minus the tie versus a full white tuxedo complete with top hat. Their expressions closer to each other, the white-suited version thinner for a split second. Letting out a relieved breath, Ryou permitted himself a smile.

"It would be a pleasure, then. If your, uh –" Brother? Cousin? _I don't know what, but the Shadows say they're related,_ "-friend doesn't mind coming with us, we could go to the arcade." He thought about that idea further. "Or the park. Domino has a good park. Nice and open and. . . green. Naturally green."

The other smirked – definitely smirked – this time.

"Sounds as good a place as any. I'm not finding anything here," a hand encompassed the room and its occupants. "I suppose it's just not my kind of crime scene."

And for the second time, the double images blurred. This time, they were both wearing an identical mischievous smirk.

---

A while later, a disgruntled Conan was being figuratively dragged around the park by his cousin who was three months younger than him and acting as if were the one who was terminally short and this kid who, while older than both of them by almost a year, was acting no better than Kaito.

At the moment, that meant discussing slight of hand tricks and the various ways one could make use of them outside of a magic show.

His hand twitched. Several of them hadn't been completely legal.

Deciding that Edogawa Conan should look just as excited about the turn of conversation as Shinichi felt inside, he scuffed a trainer and kicked a stone.

_Oh, please. Way to go, Shinichi. Hypocrite. You knew from the moment that boy walked in the room that he was just like Kaito. Just like _you_. Runs in the family after all, doesn't it?_ Putting aside that not so welcome thought for the moment, he mentally snorted. _I doubt he even knows he's doing it_.

Actually listening for a moment, the detective rolled his eyes. It was hardly as though – even illegal as some of their talk was – that anyone was going to start anything now, or go robbing banks just for the fun of it, that was for sure. Not with both of them sounding like avid fantasy fans who'd forgotten to get off at the stop marked 'real world' half the time and the rest reminding him that even thieves had reasons sometimes. Even if he hadn't been able to fathom those of the museum owner's kid.

"It's not as if I don't know how to think like a detective as well," the half-English boy was saying. "In fact, I only started to think like both relatively recently. Ironically, it was around then that people started to believe that it would be a good idea to have me around at crime scenes."

Both Kaito and Conan snorted.

"I understand completely," Kaito said, using his own voice. "I get invited to crime scenes practically all the time. Usually, my own."

This time, Ryou laughed, though his eyes were fixated on a point not centred on Kaito himself. Conan pointedly did not.

It hadn't taken the two thieves long to seek out their kindred spirit and, as soon as it had been safe to do so, start to talk about their trade. So far, neither of them had admitted to the other exactly what it was that they did, but were entertaining each other with vague anecdotes and taller tales.

Conan listened so as to pick up trade secrets that he could use against criminals, but despite this, he still ended up laughing along with them a fair few times, even if it were less often than those times when he did not. If only because the police in Domino seemed to be as incompetent as the local Beika divisions were good.

Catching himself in the act one time, he suppressed a snarl. He was supposed to be a _detective! I'm supposed to be arresting thieves and criminals, not laughing with them! Argh! How am I supposed to be a detective when I'm like this? How am I supposed to solve anything when – when - !_

A movement from out of the corner of his eye distracted him, however temporarily.

"Ne, Ryou-oniisan? Are you all right?"

It hadn't escaped either his or Kaito's notice that the other boy had been suffering sporadic headaches ever since they had met up with him.

Bakura looked over at him, a look of extreme irritation on his face as his eyes settled somewhere above Conan's own head but below Kaito's eye level. It gave him a rather unfocused, almost feverish look which was only compounded by the subtle hints of new amber in his gaze.

"I would be," Bakura said tightly, "perhaps a _little_ better off, if you would actually act your _age_ around me!"

---

AN: Yes, most of those examples Conan cites in his rant are straight from the manga. . . except the witch's vampire son, who is only half canon. The rest was inspired by my other story. I hope the chapter is at least a little clearer.


	4. The Faces We Hide

Shadows in the Dawn

Chapter Four – The Faces We Hide

Edit: Hopefully a couple of things make a tiny bit more sense.

........................

Conan took first one, then another step back, away from the boy. Kaito simply blinked, but it was obvious to someone who knew him as well as his cousin that the obliviousness was all an act.

"What're you talking about?" Kaito asked with mock confusion mixed in with more than a little of the real thing. "I _am_ acting my age."

Bakura, who had still been holding a hand to his head, shook his head with a grimace.

"I'm sorry. I really am. I didn't mean to. I didn't. I simply. . ." he groaned, and ran his hand through white hair. "It _hurt_."

Kaito frowned, and Conan understood only part of the other's confusion. Even taking in due course, the brain ache of having figured out both of their true identities would get to someone, but not in this way. The way that kid had said that made it seem more like the same way Conan himself would sometimes get when he wanted to get people to understand the real truth, but not in a purely emotional way.

All in all he didn't really know what to think of the situation. It shouldn't have been possible for anyone to figure out both of their secrets in less than half an hour; yet here was living proof, right in front of them. More to the point, right in front of Kaito, who had now placed both of his hands on the other boy's shoulders.

"Oi, Bakura-kun? Bakura, you all right?"

The boy in question dragged his hand slowly down and away from his face, looking just away from them and then indirectly at Kaito before heaving a sigh.

"...Yes. Better, I think." He seemed to hazard a look in Conan's direction, only to go cross-eyed, eyes ending up focused somewhere between the top of the young detective's head and somewhere around chest height on Kaito. "Er. . . are there supposed to be three..." He took another look at Kaito, and ended up slightly cross-eyed again. "... and a bit... of you? I don't think there are."

Conan stared wide-eyed at him, now incredulous and with the fear of suspicion half forgotten.

"What are you – concussed? How the- How can you still be standing like that?"

Bakura looked truly and utterly confused for the first time since they had met him.

"Concussed? When did I ever say I was concussed? I simply-"

"How much do you know?"

The park – or at least their section of it – went silent. Conan stilled by confusion, suspicion, and the complete inability to comprehend what the other two were going on about apart from the fact that it was something that made the Bakura kid widen his eyes with what he _thought_ was disbelief.

Kaito put on a bored expression, crossing his arms behind his neck.

"Well... I, ah... um. I didn't mean to," said Bakura Ryou in a rush. "I'm sorry. I really am. I just couldn't, um. . ." he trailed off, but let out a deep breath. When he looked back up at them, his expression had turned somewhat more serious – and not to mention a lot more curious. "You. . . you said that you happen to be a magician, Kuroba-san? What precisely.... which kind of magic did you say you studied?"

Conan found that he had inadvertently backed himself up against a tree, and he was breathing rapidly. _What the hell was going on here?_ he wanted to shout at them, but he couldn't. Call it morbid curiosity to see what was going to happen next or sheer disbelief that someone else could figure out all of their secrets – and for that person to be a thief, another thief – was doing his head in.

Kaito's eyes cracked open slightly, but he could still see the Poker Face layered above his cousin's emotions quite clearly.

"Illusions, mostly," he said. "But not, I think, the same kind of illusions as you. I could well ask you the same question. All that I've seen so far points to some _very_ interesting things."

Bakura flushed, ducking his head again.

"I really am sorry, you know," he said. "I shouldn't have burst out like that; I shouldn't have pried. Perhaps I could..." he cut himself off, closing his eyes in what looked like familiar frustration, expression changing rapidly between irritated, amused, angry and finally soft triumph. When he finally opened his eyes again, it was to both Kuroba cousins staring at him with a great amount of interest. He sighed. "Perhaps it would be better if we took this conversation somewhere a little more private? People here in Domino are used to strange things happening, but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be talk if someone accidentally overheard something they weren't supposed to hear."

Conan and Kaito shared a look, and the taller of the two nodded.

"Sounds good. You know of anywhere like that?"

"Well," Bakura said, scraching his head, "I was rather thinking that we could go over to my place. I might as well get everything out into the open with you all at once, seen as I already know so much more about you so much sooner than you would have liked."

Conan pushed himself away from the tree, crossing his arms in a show of suspicion – he didn't completely trust the other yet, and couldn't see why they would be more safe in his home as opposed to somewhere that was more like neutral territory for the three of them.

"Oh, I'm sure you'd be quite safe – after all," Bakura said as he started to head off in the direction that was bound to lead to his home, "we are on equal terms, aren't we?"

Conan decided that he definitely did not like the look of suspicion in his cousin's eye at that last comment, or the twinkle in the white-haired, brown-eyed teen's eye when he had said it.

Kaito followed the older teen and thief in the walk towards their destination with curiosity hidden behind a carefully constructed Poker Face.

He had fixed his hair back up into his cousin's neater style before they had left the park, all too aware that if they were in a less open space than the park and with more people who wanted to take notice, the switch between comfort and disguise would mean an awful lot to all of them. And with the hair had returned his Shinichi act. Not, he would admit, that it was very hard for him to do.

He had found himself in the middle of the small procession of three, most probably Conan's way of using him as a human shield against the enigma that was Bakura Ryou.

A guy who had admitted to being a thief before discovering an aptitude for detective work, and usually the kind that involved some of the cases of a stranger bent, if what he was hearing was true. Someone whose expressions had shown Kaito that either the older boy's imagination had been kept so active that he still had an imaginary friend, there was something wrong with his mind, or that there was something rather more interesting going on here than even he, hardly a novice in the ways of magic, had encountered before.

In Kuroba Kaito's experience, 'interesting' usually meant the same thing as 'dangerous'. And just because they hadn't seen any kind of intentionally threatening behaviour so far, didn't mean that it wouldn't ever appear.

Just because they were all thieves didn't mean that they had to trust each other right off the bat either, after all.

Taking all of this into account, Shinichi's little problem with his acceptance of magic – rather, the miniature detective's absolute refusal to accept anything more extraordinary than his classroom and parlour tricks – was not going to be helping matters any.

_Necromancy_, came the unwanted thought as they came upon a street of apartment buildings. _How in heck does someone as nice as that know about necromancy?_ _And if he knows about that, then I could just as well ask about that language – Egyptian, was it? – that he was spouting out earlier. Bound to be a story in that_. Not to mention various other things he'd heard of during their stay.

Mister White Haired Mystery opened up the door to one of the complexes, let them through. Waited for them to be inside before he shut the door securely and led them up six flights of stairs – not too tiring for him, he was too used to dancing around Nakamori's cops on a regular basis and keeping in shape for that to be scared of stairs, but he was sure Conan would be lagging if it wasn't for the fact that the pace was kept slow enough for shorter legs. Still, he preferred stairs, right now. If he, or his cousin, for that matter, had had to be stuck in an elevator for however many seconds as it took to get to the. . . sixth floor, was it? Then they would have both gone stir-crazy.

Another door – he noted that it was apartment number six-oh-one – and they were in, switching outdoor shoes for indoor slippers and being led to the living room where they could sit down while their host could make them tea. Kaito held back a snigger, reminded of his blond classmate, Hakuba Saguru, who was also half British.

"So," said Conan, as soon as they'd been seated. "What do you really think? And not about that _magic_ thing, either. Would _you_ trust him?"

Kaito ruffled his hair back into it's normal comb-eating state, and slouched back into the sofa.

"Depends," he said. "I think so. But that's if what he seems to be ends up being what he actually is."

Conan actually nodded, getting at what he meant.

"Not to mention if he's really got a good reason for doing what he does," he said, crossing his arms.

Kaito had to silently agree, not that he'd say so. But just because he was a kaitou himself and his cousin was by blood if not choice, didn't mean that either of them would do a thing without good reason.

Bakura, however, chose that moment to walk back in with a tray bearing three steaming mugs of tea. He put them down on the table in front of them.

"Look, you guys," he said, sighing as he sat down with a hand straying to something underneath his shirt. "Let me just say this again – I really am sorry. I never would have done any of this if . . ."

"If what?"

Bakura glanced sharply over at Conan, who had spoken, and let his hand drop to his lap.

"If I hadn't thought that there was any other way," he finished, solemnly and seriously.

"Any other way to do what?" Conan continued, Kaito staying silent for the moment.

"Whatever it is we have to do, I should think," Bakura shot back with his first hint of sarcasm. "I would imagine that the first step of play would be to solve the case that you were called here for."

_Well, that's interesting._

"And what do you mean by that? 'First step of play'?"

Bakura stopped himself short as he looked at Kaito, as though not realising that he had said anything strange.

"What. . . oh. I apologise. I am used to using games as a way of explaining myself – my friends and I all play one particular card game, and I had always had an interest in games before then, especially in, ah. . . role play."

"Role play?" He was familiar with the card game – they both were. Conan especially, he figured, given who the guy usually hung out with. But...

Bakura nodded seriously, taking the chance to have a long overdue sip of his tea.

"Yes. Where one takes on the role of the character for the duration of the game. . . I specialise in board games of this sort. I've been known to be able to create some rather extraordinary landscapes for the boards, at times," he said, finishing with a curiously bitter note.

"And how does that tie into what we were talking about before?"

Kaito tapped his cousin lightly upside the head. Not really hard enough to be a breach of the Rules, but hard enough to get the kid's attention. Really, he could be so clueless sometimes, for a detective.

"Idiot," he said as 'Conan' glared up at him, silently promising revenge of some sort, "what else were we talking about earlier? Don't tell me, your magic expresses itself through games."

"That and more," the museum owner's son said with a glance at Shinichi. "And then, of course, there are always those times when the games seem to play by rules of their own devising. . ."

Something caught in Kaito's throat, and a shiver made its way down his spine with a sense of foreboding accompanying it. _For some reason, I really don't like the sound of that. Especially what with what he just said a minute or so ago_. . .

AN: And so here it is, not yet Christmas, and a new chapter's up. I think this is the longest so far. I'm not cutting off their conversation straight off like that, though – it's going to go back in on the rest, and what's going to be revealed is going to be very interesting indeed...

I hope no one's too confused about the whole magic-ness of the story. Very much AU from Relative Truth the way Becky did it this way, tho. I'm sorry to say that there's no other backstory to the DC/MK side, too. Only to what Bakura's said and is going to say regarding that jaunt in Azumano.

(BTW, the Christmas crack's because the shops are already insisting that it IS .)


End file.
